Antibiotics prevent millions of deaths each year and remain the primary treatment for potentially fatal bacterial infections. Yet inappropriate prescription rates and overuse of antibiotics have led to resistance that has created a global health emergency and kills at least 700,000 people a year. If no action is taken, it is predicted to increase to 10 million deaths per year by 2050.1
Today’s healthcare professionals are challenged with balancing appropriate antibiotic prescribing with withholding of unnecessary antibiotic. Since infection symptoms can be non-specific, broad spectrum antibiotics are often the first line of defense for many clinicians to avoid missing potentially severe cases.
Serial procalcitonin (PCT) testing can make a difference when speed and accuracy matter most. PCT provides data specific to systemic bacterial infection, with respect to its presence, course, and severity.3 Adopting PCT tests into your antibiotic stewardship program has the potential to reduce initial antibiotic prescription rates, antibiotic treatment duration, in-hospital and ICU length of stay, and the likelihood of antibiotic-caused adverse events while resulting in optimized therapy, improved outcomes, and reduced costs.